Nationwide Series

The Nationwide series kicks off the weekend tonight at Richmond International Raceway. Travis Pastrana is set to hop back in the saddle once again to make his Nationwide debut, after is was postponed due to an X Games accident at the Los Angeles Arena last year while doing a trick on his dirt bike.

His ankle was shattered into about 20 pieces during that accident, so it wasn’t your typical break. It has taken Pastrana about 9 months to recover from his injuries and countless hours of rehab.

Travis said that he has been spending a ton of time in the iRacing Machine track simulator, to try to prepare for the Virginia 529 College Savings 250 that will run tonight at RIR.

Pastrana also went on to say that he’s a little more prepared now then he would have been last year, and that he didn’t fully understand the language that the drivers use to describe set-ups and how the car may be handling. During his time off he watched more of the sport to educate himself on what the drivers were talking about when describing different scenarios and situations.

Another thing that they had to fix was, when Travis sat in the cock pit of his race car they had to relocate the gas pedal in relation to his repaired ankle so that he could get on and off of the throttle easier while out on the race track.

He said that he would he happy to finish his first race and to stay out of trouble by not hitting the wall or a fellow competitor.

Danica Patrick has announced that instead of racing in the Indianapolis 500, that she would run NASCAR’s longest race of the year in the Sprint Cup Series,which is the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. In 2005 Danica Patrick finished 4th in the Indy 500, claiming the highest finish by any female driver.

Danica will be racing in the Nationwide Series for Jr. Motorsports during the 2012 season, and has 10 races that she plans to run in the Sprint Cup Series on a limited schedule for Stewart-Haas Racing.

Danica said that she would love to run in the Indy 500 again one day possibly pulling a double between the two different series, and could possibly add the Brickyard 400 onto her schedule as her 10th race to be run in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series.